


Daddy

by ssa_archivist



Category: Smallville
Genre: episode-related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-01-13
Updated: 2002-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-01 11:01:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/355921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssa_archivist/pseuds/ssa_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Luthors spend some quality time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daddy

**Author's Note:**

> Cast: Lex and Lionel Luthor. This takes place the evening of "Jitters," the hostages-in-the-plant episode. Mimuscule spoilers for that and for the pilot. When I started it, I hadn't seen "Hourglass." Consequently, far as this is concerned, "Hourglass" hasn't happened. 

## Daddy

by Falada

[]()

* * *

DADDY, by Falada (Jetsam24@aol.com) 

It hasn't been beta'd. I'd be vastly appreciative (probably mad as hell too, but that's okay) for any retroactive beta-ish observations you've time to share. It won't help this, but might help me do better on some other attempt. 

Disclaimer: Characters and general framework belong to a complicated set of others. I pose no threat to their wellbeing. Since I've put the story here in the spirit of tossing a note-in-a-bottle overboard, it can drift elsewhere, but as a courtesy please ask me first, and don't mess with the text. It is what it is. Not smutty, but I haven't fudged Clark's official age. Lex's viewpoint on that issue is my viewpoint. 

* * *

To Lex's annoyance, Lionel decided to send the chopper back to Metropolis without him and spend the night in Smallville, thus exhibiting commendable fatherly solicitude. "Just in case." he told Lex. "You've been through a lot today." 

Then he insisted on being the one to drive them home in Lex's Porsche. When he proved ham-handed with the shift, he covered, typically, by taking the offensive: "I'm surprised they still make cars with these. Is it what they call, ah, butch, is that the word, Lex, butch? Having a manual gearshift, I mean? Is it some sort of gay signal?" 

Lex briefly considered grabbing the wheel when they got to the bridge and sending the two of them into the river, and eternity. This time there wouldn't be any Clark to do salvage. But no; he didn't really think seriously about suicide any more. Life wasn't totally hopeless. 

He was tired, every muscle aching. Alone, he'd have taken a long shower and eaten supper off a tray and thought about what happened today at the plant. However, Lionel's presence meant a full-bore dinner, requiring a last-minute scramble by poor Gervase to come up with something grand enough. Ah, well: at least Lionel didn't insist they sit at opposite ends of the long table; he was capable of that sort of nonsense. On the other hand, he didn't suggest skipping the ritual after-dinner coffee and brandy in the library, where he settled glumly. 

Lex tried diluting the silence with questions about other Luthor enterprises, but Lionel's responses were so curt that he abandoned that effort and resorted to nattering on about his dealings with the city council, his ideas for strengthening other political alliances, his plans for a December business/pleasure junket to Sydney...anything to fill time. 

Lionel broke into his monologue abruptly:"Dominic tells me you've got Little Abner delivering produce here, but he failed to mention he's Jonathan Kent's teenage son. That is the boy Dominic saw, right?" He looked at Lex with narrowed eyes. 

"Dominic's such a bitch. Wouldn't you think he'd be a better spy?" 

"Don't talk that way." 

Innocently, Lex asked, "What way?" 

"Like that. Like a, a - " 

"A fag? Might that be what you're trying to say?" 

Lionel ignored the question. They understood each other. "Anywhere but Smallville, Lex. Or preferably anywhere but Kansas. And anybody who's of legal age and isn't diseased, or another blackmailer. Is that too much to ask?" 

"No, I guess it isn't." And because he enjoyed making Lionel's mouth twist in distaste, he added, "I know, I know: While I'm here, I can look, but I mustn't touch." 

With the two of them, it always came down to games. You'd have thought the price of the abortion and hush money Lionel had to shell out when Lex was nineteen would have been enough to make him shut up about sexual orientation: look, Lionel, I can get it up when duty calls, and my sperm count is just fine. It didn't work that way. His father might be gratified to know that his son could breed another generation of Luthors, but the fact remained that Lex was homosexual. That fact could never be kept totally secret; and it reflected badly on Lionel. 

Lionel turned away; Lex couldn't see his face. "I'm going to bed. Presumably my room is ready?" Rising, he added,"I really am proud of you, you know." 

Christ, how typical. Maybe he really was proud, in a way. Proud of something Lex didn't do. Or did for the wrong reasons. Sure, Lex thought, I got the kids out, except the only kid that mattered. And instead of saving that one, I was bawling like a motherless calf for him to save me. And I'm taking the credit for resolving the whole mess because Clark's scared to death somebody will discover his secret, whatever the hell it is. 

"Thanks, Lionel," Lex said. And blinked at what he'd just called his father. 

He'd never addressed him that way before. Since he was nine, it had been "father;" sometimes, after he started school in England, "sir." As often as he could, he just said "you." To himself, he'd called Lionel by his given name for years, but saying it aloud was inadvertent. 

Lex didn't remember much of the time right after those nightmarish minutes in the cornfield twelve years ago. He was taken to the Metropolis Hospital, where they found bruises and, of course, the hairlessness. He slept a lot, but he was pretty sure his father visited him there once or twice. Then they flew him up to Minnesota, where a world-famous clinic's world-famous doctors couldn't figure out what had happened to him and what to do about it. 

The three weeks at the clinic were horrible. Not the tests, but being in a children's ward because the doctors insisted it was better for him than isolation in a private suite. Lionel yielded to their advice; maybe, in his own way, he loved Lex then. Hell, maybe he still did. 

Lex hated that ward; all the kids were seriously ill, some were dying. Sure, some were hairless, but for them it made sense, it meant something. He tried to tell the other children he was okay, didn't belong there, but they seemed to believe he was sick like them and just couldn't accept his sickness. He realized eventually that those poor little wretches had been remarkably kind; there was none of the juvenile cruelty he would meet up with later. 

But he spent the those days knowing he was an imposter, an outsider. When the nurses would let him, he escaped into books or sleep. 

And then Lionel came in person to retrieve him. Of course, he'd used the jet to get to a conference in Minneapolis and it wasn't all that far to Rochester, but at the time Lex was simply joyous: his father was there to take him home. "Daddy! Daddy!" he'd cried, and scrambled off the bed to hug him. 

Lionel returned the hug cursorily; he'd never been demonstrative. In the limo on the way to the airport, Lex said hopefully, "Daddy, do you see I'm getting eyebrows now? So maybe it's all going to come back. Gradually, you know." 

Lionel passed his hand over Lex's skull then, back to front, feeling for any hint of stubble. "Umph," he said. 

Later, in the plane, Lionel told him, "Lex, 'Daddy' is a little boy's word. It's time you started calling me `Father.'" 

That was when Lex sensed he'd lost his father. Too. His mother had wanted to get sick and die, more than she wanted to stay with him. And now his father didn't want him either, because he'd turned into a freak. 

While Lionel fished papers from his briefcase and began to read, Lex curled into a miserable bundle on a couple of the seats and willed himself to sleep so he wouldn't cry. 

After their flight home, Lex never remembered his father touching his bare skin again, except for handshakes or the accidental brush of their faces in public embrace. Eventually it didn't matter. When you know someone finds you repulsive, you are as anxious to avoid physical contact as he is. 

That same year, Lionel started letting his own hair grow into an eccentric, unfashionable mane that became a sort of trademark. How many tycoons can you identify from just a shot of the back of their heads, Lex wondered. Lex's skull, of course, stayed naked. 

And now tonight, when he really didn't feel up to a major confrontation, he'd blurted Lionel's given name. 

His father's eyebrows went up, "`Lionel'?" he repeated. Then, surprisingly, he merely shrugged, as though to concede Lex the points on that one. "I'll see you in the morning. You going to sit here all night with the brandy?" 

"I doubt it," Lex said. "I think I may sit here just a little longer with the brandy and then I'll go to bed and jack off to fantasies of local rustics." Wondering why he didn't leave well enough alone. Except that sometimes he just couldn't. 

He watched Lionel swing round and stomp angrily through the doorway. Odd: he almost wished he could confide in the man. He wanted to tell someone about Clark, and there was no one to tell. If it were an ordinary fancy for an ordinary (but beautiful), under-age (but lovely), straight (but gorgeous) kid, he'd have an amusingly self-deprecating tale for unshockable, un-Kansas, friends. 

For better or for worse, though, Clark wasn't ordinary, and he wasn't one of Lex's ordinary fancies. It started only because Lex needed to understand what happened to him in the cornfield, and along came this boy with baffling powers he tried so hard to conceal, powers that surely had a connection with the day the meteors whistled and crashed all around nine-year-old Lex. Along came this farmboy, who somehow kept him from both killing and being killed in an instant of careless driving, and saved him today for a second time. 

Clark's inhuman powers: they'd made him set out to charm Clark in the first place, and now the enterprise seemed to be spinning out of control. 

Because now, dammit, he was obsessed with Clark himself. He wanted that boy almost as much as he'd ached long ago for a set of parents gone missing. So bloody ridiculous. He wanted Clark's sweetness, his small-town innocence and his exasperating adolescent foolishness and erratic moments of calm wisdom. And of course wanted his body, so much it made him halfway sick sometimes. Just the thought, now, made gasp. Maybe that's what he wanted more than anything else. Maybe he'd settle for never knowing Clark any better at all, never getting to the root of his abilities, if he could only make love with him. 

He slammed the snifter down on the end-table and lurched to his feet. "Make love?" That phrase didn't belong to him. He didn't do that. Never had, never would. Not his style. 

Affection, yes; you can bind people to you with charm and money and low-maintenance affection. 

Ordinary lust, yes; it complicates a relationship, but it has its rewards and it can be managed while you enjoy it. 

Love, no. Not that. Love robs you of power. 

Unless, he thought woozily. Unless? 

He'd been flirting broadly with Clark, more than with the other kids, far more than he did automatically and discreetly with anyone who might be useful. He figured that sooner or later he'd bedazzle him into explaining the preternatural strength and speed he tried so hard to hide. 

But he'd also been teasing Clark for the joy of it. Doing it to see him blush, to watch him learning the game and liking it and starting to flirt back. Oh, yes, Clark liked the game all right: sometimes, now, the air between them was palpable with tension, and Lex would pretend not to notice the outward and visible signs of his effect on the kid. He'd made himself a place in that randy teenage imagination, part of a roster that would include assorted magazine nudies and pop singers and pretty Lana's mysterious geography. Presumably mysterious, anyhow. Clark could be enigmatic, but he was almost certainly extra-virgin. 

Okay, Lex: focus. Sometimes Clark had a disconcerting way of seeing through bullshit. More than once he'd politely called Lex on minor insincerities. 

He was dizzy. Closing his eyes, he leaned back against the doorframe. There was a solution here somewhere. 

So: what if the only way to get what he needed, the information, was to get what he also wanted, Clark? Or maybe it's the other way around? Clark is what he needs and his secrets what he wants? God, Alexander, you are drop-down pissed, but you're thinking like a Luthor anyhow. If you let yourself love him, if you let him see that love, and if you offer it up along with the oh-so-brave new world of sex, he'll surely be yours as much as you'll be his. Surely. Gamble on it. For you'll never meet his like again, and you know it. 

And to solve the riddle of his disfigurement through a major indiscretion, risking felony charges and bigtime scandal: ah, that would be the ultimate Fuck You to Lionel. 

He opened his eyes. Everything around him seemed to be floating slowly downward, and he shut them again. With one hand around the bottle and the other pressed to his crotch, he slid against the doorframe down to the floor and put his head on his knees. Gervase was long since gone to his apartment over the garages. The house was silent except for an occasional snap from the guttering fire. He felt the library's escaping warm air on one side of his head and the corridor's chill on the other. Freak, he thought contemptuously; you with your so-sensitive skin. 

Well, maybe it's fitting for one freak to be in love with another. He's no fifteen-year-old boy. God knows what he is, but he is no schoolboy. He is not like me, but he's a still an aberration. A delicous monster,a baby demi-god. 

He imagined Clark beside him. Not exactly a fantasy, because Lex isn't in charge of the scenario. If he were, it would be pretty frenzied, all hunger and ferocity. But it's just Clark there in his mind, being who he is. Clark, hunkering down to look at him, eyes wide with earnest concern. Saying, "Lex? Are you all right? It's okay, you know. I'm here. You're all right." Wrapping him into a hug like a homecoming, kissing his naked head, again, again, saying, "I love you so much." An imaginary Clark so real that tears came to his eyes, but not many, and only because he was drunk. 

He was feeling better; probably could make it up to bed now. Still clutching the brandy, he scrambled to his feet and wavered down the hall toward the staircase. Told Lionel he'd be going upstairs to jerk off, hadn't he? Well, if he didn't pass out first, that was damn well what he was going to do. 

End 


End file.
